that is shaping up to be a vital test for the future of unions in america so this is the first of many battles to come shaped around state budgets that will tear america apart we're going to bait that issue with dean baker and anthony rand next violence and unrest has spread across the middle east to some of the world's most prolific oil producers who behind in libya but with western companies profiting off of those regimes and cheap oil prices across the world has the west given up on democracy in favor of stable oil prices then finally the u.s. relationship with pakistan may have reached an all time low after revelations that the american diplomat under arrest for shooting in lahore is a cia contractor all of this after news the our drone war also isn't working so can the u.s. and pakistan or it out when to speak to marcy wheeler on that subject but first let's move on to tonight's top story. the protests are continuing in wisconsin for the seventh day today as public sector employees students other supporters even

a sprinkling of rock stars and celebrities fight against governor scott walker's plan to take away collective bargaining rights tens of thousands have come out over the last week many camping out inside of the state capitol building and walker has shown no signs of changing his plans and fourteen democratic lawmakers have left the state but with poor weather conditions and perhaps most notably a concern over schools being closed how much longer can we expect all this to last joining me from wisconsin is andrew state associate editor at the badger herald andrew thanks so much for joining us now as you've been watching this unfold over the past week how has you know how is the crowd changed has it changed at all over the last week was it just teachers at first and then you saw people from other states come in and tea partiers and the like as well. well it all started on monday when a group of students led by. the teaching assistants so ca should make came up to governor walker's office with valentines and i believe they had hundreds and

hundreds of these valentines saying you know we love you we love our school and then on tuesday the protests really picked up people started camping out overnight at the capitol and i believe on tuesday there was roughly ten to fifteen thousand people. now i also heard that about two thousand tape arty areas that were bussed in and they have chorus are not supporting the private sector employees here quite the opposite they're against them did you see any kind of any kind of conflicts or merger how do they make saying with the crowd share well that was on this past saturday. saturday there was probably seventy thousand people all together and as you said the tea partiers made up a very small minority of that it was also the first time that police officers around the capitol had to actually fence off an area specifically for the tea partiers as for conflict there weren't any arrests according to the madison police

department but there was duffy some vocal scuffles between the two opposing sides now i know that you know there's been some bad weather perhaps not a hundred thousand people came out like they were planning for today a lot of people had to go into the capitol building but what's what's the mood like in general does it feel like these protesters and the crowds are beginning to wane and break off a little bit. well i would say that it definitely was picking up throughout the entire last week but with the bad weather that started sunday i know a lot of the protests and rallies that were supposed to be held outside of now i have to move inside the capitol building it's sort of fuels like people are slowing down but i wouldn't i wouldn't say that right now i think that some are i know there's a whole bunch of. rallies planned. for all fs which is a professor union or professor organization and campus is actually going to have a walkout so i think the protests are definitely still going as you know fourteen

democratic senators are still in illinois and i believe is as long as they're gone most of the protesters are going to stick it out really i think a lot of protests are going to stick it out i mean don't don't teachers have to go back to school and teach the students who also have to go back to school how long can it really last or do you think that we might just see you know one small core group that is going to stick around for a while. well that's a good question and i have to say it's been very confusing being a student right now because you get e-mails the day of saying you know a class may or may not be canceled show up if you would like to a lot of the t.a.'s are trying their best to facilitate discussions off campus if they have an issue staying on campus as for the protesters right now i do believe although teachers have said they want to go back to class they also feel very strongly about what they're doing and i think it's too soon. to speculate whether or not they're going to go back to teaching classes now you know. following unrest

in the middle east and northern africa in tunisia and egypt we've now heard from labor unions and egypt that has said that they are supporting the protesters in wisconsin is that felt are people talking about the fact that now they've got international attention for what they're doing yeah it's pretty strange knowing that the city that i've lived in for four years has suddenly become the beacon for everybody's news broadcast across the world kind of an interesting story there's a pizza place called pizzeria and people called in all across the world from egypt from the netherlands from germany from korea even from china donating pizzas to the protesters so i think on sunday. ian's pizza sold six hundred fifty whole pizzas that caller said donated from across the world so it's a very interesting and exciting time to be in madison right now we have more for

our viewers on the story after we get back from break but i have one last question for you i mean is there are people acting surprised that this is going on because you know scott walker campaigned on this issue he said that they that they would he would take these actions so why is that the people are coming out now you know there are a came out last week the week before this vote happened. right and governor walker is definitely not going to change and in his press conferences he has alluded to the fact that he campaigned on this promise. but people are not so much surprised as just they've been willing to to give their pensions and their health care premiums have been willing to give more money that's not the issue the issue is really the collective bargaining rights and i think that most of the people protesting just think it's you know the governor is very audacious to even consider such a thing considering wisconsin has been at the forefront of the union movement for fifty years so it's not so much surprise it's almost discussed yeah and actually

a poll coming out from wisconsin earlier today that said two to one people in wisconsin thought that governor scott walker was going to file andrew thank you so much for joining us and of course all can walk out from here in the say there right . now it's time for a break but as soon as we get back to labor unions in egypt are expressing solidarity with those in wisconsin in the form of can't stop and will debate everything from accusations of union busting to the little showdown over the federal budget with dean baker the center for economic and policy research and anthony randolph of the reason foundation don't let me. bring you the latest in science technology from the realm. of the future

a very. wealthy british study all. the time to. go to. market why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's cancer a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines kaiser reports. have you ever considered pizza to be a symbol of support all it is to some apparently somebody in egypt has been paying a lot of attention to the union strike underway in wisconsin so an attempt to show their solidarity from the other side of the world they ordered a pizza for the workers on strike now we should mention that there's already

a pizza movement as we spoke about a minute ago as evens pizza shop has been getting calls from across the country from people who want to buy pies for those that have been protesting around the clock but ins is reporting that their support is also reached international measures as twelve countries have ordered up slices for was constant union work. now why are some of these other countries taking such an interest how about egypt for example on top of their protests for democracy many egyptians were taking to the streets to fight their equivalent of right wing and economic policies and one egyptian has even made a video statement saying that we stand with you as you stood with us so who knew that was constant union workers were getting so much international attention i think it just goes to show how people can find commonality solidarity from around the world but it also shows the power of social media using methods like twitter to keep the world informed or facebook to stage protests and post pictures they became valuable tools when people needed to communicate the most and in fact there are

reports today that one egypt sion just aimed his daughter facebook to signify how much this web site aided the people in overthrowing their government now as unrest continues all over the world surely people will continue to rely on international communication to have their voices heard and i guess by a little pizza to show their support and that brings us to our next story. the protests in wisconsin over the last week have received not only national but also international attention and is more than twelve other states and the u.s. ready right to work legislation or other similar measures the good book elect of bargaining rights at risk we have to ask how big this could really become as a sleeping giant the american a working class being woken numerous progressive's the likes of noam chomsky have toyed with the idea of sparks of a revolution a class war but then again people like governor scott walker were elected democratically by a majority so you have to wonder if america's become polarized to the point of no return as threats of federal government shutdown also or if this is all just part

of the plan to pit us against each other so we don't notice the consolidation of wealth and power in the hands of a few to discuss with me is anthony around as a director of economic research for the reason foundation and dean baker co-director of the center for economic and paula. research in washington thanks so much for being here tonight let's start plain and simple do you think scott walker is a union busters what he's doing politically motivated here. is it any other way i mean if you look at what he's put on the table that he's already got the financial concessions you want the union said will give you what you want terms of pay more for pensions paying for the health care where you can give the wage concessions but he's saying no we're going to take away your rights as union members except for the unions that supported him during the campaign i don't know what else you call that i think that scott walker is looking at this long term this is not about just fixing this budget it's about ensuring that the budget of wisconsin is stable going forward and we got to this place because of political power being concentrated in

public sector unions and pushing for unsustainable benefits in health care and in their pensions and so it can't be just about the short term focus of fixing the budget today needs to be looking at what's best for wisconsin long term what is what's best for wisconsin long term taking away collective bargaining rights isn't that you know just a basic symbol of american rights in america we're talking not about private sector unions who are talking about public sector workers these are state so these are state workers which is a different ballgame so it's not this is not. taking away the rights of any businesses with their unions and their right to unionize these are state workers are to outsiders not but on workers in america years ago there was a two important points to recognize first off it's easy to dismiss this idea that they've been breaking the bank because we could look at the data we have there been any number of studies state employees this is true what's going on since true in

most states are actually paid compensation kind of benefits a bit less than private sector employees if you account for education experience the other point let's not forget the only reason there is a budget crisis in wisconsin the most these other states is because alan greenspan didn't know how to run the economy and the wall street boys ran wild if we didn't have this worst downturn since the great depression. they'd have four billion dollars more in their coffers there would be no budget issue whatsoever you know the data actually pushes back against because if you look at spending in wisconsin from two thousand and two to two thousand and eight basically the boom period in the last decade their population plus and inflation grew at a rate of twenty three percent but their direct spending grew thirty seven percent i think it should be about thirty seven percent this speaks to them spending unsustainably their budget is the way that it is because they thought that the good days were always going to be around that there was not going to be a downturn so yes i mean we could absolutely you know this is the good days are over right let's put it that way right now no you know what i was very very clear is not necessarily a good situation we have

a very bad it will be i've worked on it because you think that what we're seeing because of all this is some kind of i don't wakening the american people the american you know working class again you know well i don't know but i mean the point when we keep in mind we make it worse by austerity if that's what the incredible stupidity about all this is it by making more cuts we're making matters worse we're in this and usual situation right now where we have twenty five million people unemployed or underemployed not because we don't have the resources it's because we don't have the demand you just have to create more demand so we have this form scrying of poverty when what we really need to do is spend money but you have all these nut balls running around washington yelling the sky is falling the sky is falling and it just makes matters worse is back now who is going to exactly what we tried two years ago when we instituted the stimulus we're now two years away from the signing the american recovery and reinvestment act the economy is not bounce back stimulus spending has not pushed us into some kind of robust recovery we have unemployment that is worse than it was when we started this whole stimulus

spending mess we were keeping people from moving to other places by encouraging them to stay where they are with unemployment checks as many of us said at the time the stimulus was too small we said very clearly christina romer president obama's chief advisor wanted a stimulus that was twice. large and that was when she was looking at projections that were considerably more optimistic than what we actually had at the time so the fact that it was too small is hardly a surprise there been any number of studies that come out show that the stimulus did create jobs we would have had eleven or twelve percent point no one could be happy about nine but how about eleven or twelve i mean you're you know with all due respect you're not answering my question here i don't ask you to come in and give me all the memories i want to know do you think that we're seeing some kind of a larger movement though emerge right people are saying the same thing about the tea party movement that there is anger at the federal government anti washington sentiment because they bailed out the fact cats on wall street are we seeing the same thing just you know more left person active is this a larger movement because there are a lot of there are governors and other states right at least twelve other states

that have similar legislation we've seen protests now in ohio and indiana and it's not all based in wisconsin on was this is now you know this certainly is a watershed moment for this particular move because depending on what happens here will encourage mitch daniels or what he's going to do any d.n.a. one way or another it's going to change the political calculus in ohio but it's it's already the what has happened in the pushback is already occurred the way michigan and their new republican governor the way they're looking at this and it's not going to push this far so it certainly is a big moment but the ripple effects of already sort of started but they haven't started in such a way that we've sort of seen this. massive protests in every state capital it's they've been small in other states there's been talk about them talking about them going to other states but it's still i think we still don't know for sure whether or not this is that particular moment you're trying to talk about you know i'd say it's hugely important we have to see where it goes and bore you again we're talking

about wall street if they don't get focused on the real problem if we accept somehow that we have to have this austerity will then it's going to be a dead letter because you're working in the wrong framework you're working from the right wing's playbook and you're going to lose there's no way around it so if they can't get there on the ball and so. look this whole austerity stuff is utter nonsense we have to increase demand to get out of this well then it's going to lose our will since you keep bringing it over let's segue for a moment here aside from just wisconsin always see governors acting across the u.s. as we also see a possible federal government shutdown looming this is i don't know you know there are rumors over and said no it's not possible and now we know is it might be possible has it gotten to that point where we just can't get along on anything where it's so polarized the democrats and republicans just to have two fundamentally different visions there's no way to come you know find a middle ground but i think the question is whether they decide it's in their interest to have a shutdown this is partly to go she process we were here before obviously back in

the ninety's when president clinton was in the white house and congress had taken over control of the house and you know that turned out to be to president clinton's advantage and you know again there will be willing to go there if they think that it's to their advantage to go there and that's when i can answer i don't know who i mean i give you stories both ways but i can't tell you who wins i don't i don't know that anybody actually wants to be a government shutdown what people want is to get the political wind out of this so you know that that's that will ultimately decide what the republicans do or whether or not if a bill gets passed at the president's own do you do when your country is in a recession right now one side wants to spend spend spend because they think that's the way to get out of it and one side wants to cut cut cut because they think that's the best way of getting out of it and there's just it's just butting heads the priorities are completely off it's not i don't think it's actually as black and white as you're painting a picture that there is a movement in the senate there are six senators that are trying to look at simpson's bowles commission and try to actually take those ideas and put them into

law or begin to work on some of them most of them were not taken up by the president's two thousand and twelve budget which i think is a shame because i thought that that plan provided a good basis by which both the left on the right could come together to have a discussion and so that i don't think it's all democrats are here and all republicans are on the. there is a movement it's the leadership will be started it's democratic party if there go that way the big cuts of social security big cuts in medicare the core programs that tens of millions of people in this country depend on everyone expects to get their retirement if president obama orders brace that he virtually will guarantee himself being a one term president like him a nice job on wall street but you will not make him a good or a popular president aren't there are no number out your way this is robert greenwald was talking about this today in response to what's happening in wisconsin he said if you just send one hundred fifty troops home from afghanistan you'll fix wisconsin's entire budget gap. we don't you know the issue is not a shortage of money i mean this is it's not as i say this is what is it where

you're spending money no amount of money that's why i'm saying we could we could go create the money and this idea will create inflation is nuts by me the inflation this economy it's utterly crazy so yeah we could get it out of afghanistan we could print it we don't have a shortage of money you have an ideologically driven governor there wants to break the labor unions he wants the shortage that's that's the key story it's i think it's a matter of short term versus long term we could certainly print as much money as we want and we may not have inflation this year we may not have inflation in the next two years but the inflation risk is real it's real right now given the amount of liquidity that's in the system and frankly i don't trust the federal reserve ability to control inflation and i point to you in the last ten years the federal reserve's inability to manage the economy as a potential manager we talk about regulation as if we have these all knowing god the f.t. i see in the federal reserve in the c.c. and even the treasury department can know when the foot the surface of the right

time i don't trust them so if we want to just make a short term fix we can do a short term fix if we want to long term fix having the federal government bring home one hundred fifty soldiers throw that money and fix wisconsin's budget today doesn't solve the state's problem long term but it doesn't does you know having republican governors people like scott walker they clearly have an agenda here that want to i think just get rid of public sector unions altogether does that really help the country in the long term i mean is this the end of unions and well i believe i could start a very serious matter that unions have an important force for democracy in the united states and around the world i mean you have unions in democratic countries you don't have unions and undemocratic countries have been tremendously important force everywhere they've been important force in building the middle class in the united states with a forty hour work week because of the unions if you got rid of the unions you already destroyed them virtually destroyed the private sector they'd been twenty percent of the private sector labor for. which just as recently as nine hundred eighty seven percent today public sector and public sector hasn't been as harsh in

trying to break unions as the private sector there's still about thirty six percent of the public sector workforce i think clearly this is an effort to break public sector unions a sort of last bastion of progressive politics what happens if that works i really think that we need to think about public sector and private sector unions differently because we're talking about i mean in wisconsin new york times reported that the public sector unions gave two hundred million dollars to the democratic party in that state that to me seems to be a bit of a problem that you have state subsidized workers that are fun funneling money to one particular party in that state and i'm not a republican so to me i think that it's a problem that we've had so much political power concentrated into public sector unions i think the private sector unions are i think they're a great idea i think they're important in a democratic country i think that they can manipulate their power but so can almost any organization you've talked about the evils of corporations and i think that you know where there may be some similarities in what you're sort of your concerns in where political power gets concert in the hands of a few this is not

a democracy being enacted in wisconsin right now you have democratically elected leaders that are trying to vote based off of what the people of wisconsin wanted and you this is i think it's great that they're egypt but i think that what the egyptians were pushing for is different than what the public sector unions in wisconsin are pushing for well it's going to be a long day a cold day in hell before i worry about the workers having too much power i mean you have corporations that have billions of dollars to spend plus they just buy people in this is a both political parties we have people leave the obama stretch and walk right into wall street get jobs that pay them multimillion dollars a year we've just heard that william daley president obama's new chief of staff got a nine million dollar going away present from j.p. morgan the largest banks in the country ok we think he's going to be harsh to them i mean this is the fives reality there's no way that's going to cause any problems at all while will definitely continue watching this situation. as constant as well in the meantime i hope someone sends me some freaky to just because thanks so much for joining us thanks very much now there's

a saying in the news industry if it bleeds it leads and protests wherever they may be always make for good television and cash we have lines when those protests die down and the real work begins while for me to continue to cover the change president a lorry harshness took that question to the streets of new york. after the success of protesters in egypt the media has quickly shifted their focus to other areas of unrest do they even care about the outcome or just their next big scoop this week let's talk about that i think the meat of the story is gone. but the meat of the work still has yet to be done right there's no money in that. pot of war i mean if it's all about money and power in which of the media story is totally gone is that ok are we ok with that does that mean that the media is doing its job. i don't think they're allowed to be doing their job. basically it's you

know governments and politics will control the media and about how you look at it and what people say it's just the way you go just the way it is because been like that for a long time would always be like that will come and go i mean you used to be the yellow journalism of the eighteen nineties and then like an ad you know the three major major networks with the f.c.c. regulations and they got more normalized now with you know like anybody can feel the shiny thing they're going to go after sensationalism again and opinionated journalism i mean that's kind of the those type of journalists the in the field reporting journalists it seems like that's the story with all of them they love to kind of shine just as much of a peripheral light on what they went through to get the truth out and that's that's journalism is that more important than getting the truth out no absolutely not it's like say there's some all. car dealers are bad so. you know car salesmen are good personals women don't really care about their car you know their client oh should

we expect more out of something as important as world events than car salesman you're also dealing with human nature though. and that's the bottom line i think so but i don't think you can blame the press for moving on to areas that the people are more interested in because that's the only way they're going to make money and they're going to survive but you know you guys who you have p.b.s. and we have stuff like that to harm and that's why we have to keep paying taxes so that we can have. motivators by making a profit whether or not you believe the media actually cares about the outcome of such uprisings the bottom line is that if you care make sure you get your information from as many media sources as passed. coming up next it's tool time as if the children of the rich and famous don't have enough opportunities in their lives well now they're going to have access to an

exclusive summer camp to help them deal with the bar and i found out that it came up with this brilliant idea when stripes full time war and that was under a spreading across the middle east the west relationship to some of the region's most unsavory characters has come to light so as much of the world turned a blind eye to brutality and the name of chief and stable oil.

seven thirty am in moscow good to have you with us the headline dozens of demonstrators in libya's capital tripoli reportedly killed in air raids by the military as protesters poured government buildings opposition forces played control the country's second city benghazi as libyan diplomats at the u.n. reject moammar gadhafi regime. as the e.u. maps out financial aid to countries caught up in this political unrest experts say there's little cock up the promises the e.u. and us are reportedly planning the largest foreign aid package since the end of the second world war. the liberian jews demand compensation for property seized during

world war two by the baltic s.s. units who are still viewed as the liberators of the country's official history they accuse the government of riego turning a blind eye to the nazi crimes. part of the alone a show with violence and unrest spreading in some of the world's biggest oil producing countries we take a look at the west is more interested in stable oil prices than in democracy. all right it's time for tonight's jewel time award and tonight i have to have a great news for the children of the rich and famous because you see their lives are just not quite charmed enough but the millionaire's son of private equity michael loeb has decided to start an exclusive summer camp for the.